Great video Mike! Recently joined on here. I too am a fan of porters and darker beers. Although I’ve been hanging out with homebrewers for a couple years now, I’ve only recently starting doing my own (extract kits). I only have one batch in bottles as of now, but about a month ago did JPs Imperial Porter from morebeer.com. Now, I did a little something different on my own because I do like a hint/taste of chocolate. I put the batch into a secondary with 8oz of cocao nibs. It’s been there for 2 weeeks and will do another 2. Hope it turns out good, but we’ll see. Any thoughts on adding anything into the secondary?

Just today I brewed a clone of Old Rasputin Imperial Russian Stout (North Coast), so looking forward to that one in a few or more months! Kinda hard to get some places to ship overseas (I’m in the Navy) so may have to look into making my own brews as well.

Anyway, thanks for the video and brewing advice. Have a good one!

Jimmy

Jimmy,

Thanks! I appreciate it. Let me know how JP’s Porter turns out. I’ve been dying to pick up Brewing Classic Styles.

I actually just found a beer store here that has Old Rasputin. Spendy stuff, but I’ll for sure be giving it a try in the next couple runs. It is getting a little warm for a big Imperial Stout, but there is always a cool evening here or there

In my brewing experience, I haven’t done much secondary work. Only really to dry hop or to age. I’ve added oak chips to a fantastic bourbon porter once, but that’s about it. I recently became aware that the way I move my beers tends to put more oxygen into them than I’d like. I’d really like to setup a more gravity fed system, but a lot of the equipment on the market doesn’t support that for the homebrewer unless your willing to spend 100′s on a fermenter or two. So most of the time, unless I need to hop or age a beer, everything happens during brewing, initial fermentation or in the bottle.

Where are you stationed that you can brew? I’d love to see some pics of you brewing! If you want that is.

Thanks and don’t hesitate to pop me an email or something. We can all learn together!

Thanks

Mike

Nice, I don’t know if I’d like to see how many calories my beers have, but it looks similar to the program I use. I have used Beer Alchemy for about 7 years now and really love it, it’s a similar software program for Mac’s.

When are you gonna make the jump to all grain? I waited for ever to do it and wished I would have switched earlier.

Calories, shmallories…

I’ll make the jump to all grain as soon as I’ve got more room. Its WAY to cramped in my apt as it is and if I’m going to add to my brewing equipment, it would be a small fridge to control my fermentation temperature before anything else.

But, as soon as there is room, watch out…You’ll have to come to my nanopub when its complete!

Mike

The Sass Monsters have beer reviews and much much more!!! Get another opinion now!!! http://sassmonsters.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/bethanys-beer-bonanza/

I have been brewing all grain for a few years after many years of extract brewing. I wish I would have gone all grain much earlier, but was satisfied with the product and relied on some bad advice from a local home brew supply shop owner. I got along the first few AG 10 gallon batches without a brew stand, but soon gathered some discarded steel and had my son weld up a three tiered gravity sculpture. The sculpture is an absolute breeze to brew on and I recommend one to anyone who has space for one.
On my stand I pump the water from the HLT up to the Mash Tun cooler for a batch sparge then gravity flows it to the Kettle. After the boil I use an immersion chiller and siphon the wort to a half barrel keg and move with a two wheeler to the cool basement for fermentation. After fermentation I use a come-along to raise the fermenter and siphon to either secondary or corny kegs. I have essentially eliminated all heavy lifting in the process.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/rakfink/standcomplete-1.jpg